


Day Off

by Sholio



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Future Fic, Hurt/Comfort, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-03-17 05:27:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13652355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: For a Tumblr prompt about Daniel having a bad leg day and the others making him feel better.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt was: _I so second Yalumesse's (sort of) prompt in the comment on the Daniel fic extract (which is all shades of brilliant, by the way): "I just want to see threesome futurefic where Peggy and Jack take care of Daniel when he has a bad leg day or lung day or whatever and it’s totally normal and they WANT to." Unlike Yalumesse, I AM sort of nagging you to write it :P_
> 
> So it kinda wandered off in more of a domestic fluff direction than an h/c direction ... and turned out 2K long, how do these things happen. :P

There was only so long a human body could handle being twisted to the side before things started to give. As a young man, Daniel had thought the lost leg was the thing that would bother him in his old age. He hadn't realized how years, decades, of compensating for the leg would have started leaving him with bone-deep aches in his spine and ribs and hips.

And days like today, when he could barely even get out of bed.

He was tempted by a shower, but gave up on the idea as soon as he tried to get out of bed. The hot water would have helped relax the knot he'd apparently slept himself into, but he didn't even want to deal with the extra time and effort. Getting dressed was hard enough, and certainly took long enough. He managed to get himself presentable in front of the mirror, and then he lurched downstairs (regretting with every step that, ten years ago when they bought the house, he hadn't picked a ground-floor bedroom).

Jack, sitting at the kitchen table, looked up from the paper and said bluntly, "You look like hell."

"Wow, thanks." At least there was coffee. He poured himself a cup to wash down the aspirin he'd palmed in the bathroom.

"Seriously, you look like warmed-over crap. Coming down with something?"

"No, it's just ..." Daniel waved a hand. "Slept bad. Stiff. It's nothing."

He jerked when an arm slid around his waist from behind. Even here, in their own damn kitchen, it was still habit to take a quick look around, make sure the kitchen curtains were closed and there was no one watching, before he let himself lean back into the offered support.

"It's not _nothing,"_ Jack said against his neck. "You can barely walk. You're not twenty-five anymore, you know."

"Neither are you." It was a pathetic comeback and Daniel knew it, especially when Jack laughed in his ear. "Where's Peggy?" Daniel asked.

"She's still out on the Velikhov case. Didn't come in last night."

Because of course she was. "Look, I'll be fine. Just let the aspirin and the coffee kick in --"

" _Or,"_ Jack said, "we could both work from home today. I'm in the middle of those damn financial reports, and I can just have the files couriered over from HQ. You got anything you can't skip out on?"

"Well ... not really ... there's a training session this afternoon for the new agents, but Pendlehurst can cover it. He's proven that he knows what he's doing in the field, so it's about time we gave him a chance to see if he can teach it to other people. Otherwise ..." Daniel sighed. "Financials in my department, too."

"So there you go. Work from home. I'll call in, get the files brought over and tell Marge we're taking a sick day. As for you --" Jack pushed him to arm's length and took a critical look at him. "Go take a bath."

"Are you saying I stink?"

"I'm saying the hot water will relax you and you know it, idiot."

 

***

 

He didn't want to admit that Jack was right, but a bath did help, relaxing his wound-up muscles to the point where he almost fell asleep in the tub. Half the reason why he felt like warmed-over hell today was because he hadn't managed to fall deeply asleep last night, pain jerking him awake whenever he tried to roll over.

He should probably have gone to seek out another bed to sleep in -- sometimes it was easier when he had someone to curl up against -- but he hadn't wanted to wake anyone else up. They'd all three realized some time back that they needed their own space, so they had their own rooms in the house, but there was also a general understanding that anyone who didn't want to sleep alone didn't have to. But Daniel was also aware, on nights like that, that he was hardly a prize as a bed partner: twisting into odd positions, flinching awake, and generally making a nuisance of himself.

However, it was unexpectedly fun, playing hooky from work with Jack. Not that they weren't working; while he was in the bath, Jack had gotten the promised boxes of files couriered over to the house. Daniel threw on a loose pair of pants and a soft sweater (originally Jack's, he was pretty sure) and they sprawled on the living room furniture or the floor, Jack working his way through ledger books, Daniel working on expense reports. They went through a pot and a half of coffee, dug out a half-stale plate of cookies that one of the neighbors had brought over awhile back, and started making a competitive sport out of who could make it to the bottom of their file box first.

It was a little past noon and they were halfheartedly arguing about lunch when the door opened and Peggy came in.

"And how was your day, dear?" Jack called cheerfully as she dropped her briefcase by the door.

Peggy moaned softly. "Long," she said, and took in the scene: the two of them on the couch and floor, respectively, and stacks of files everywhere. "Are you two ill? Why are you at home in the middle of the day?"

"Bad leg day," Daniel said succinctly.

"And misery loves company," Jack remarked.

Daniel pointed. "He talked me into it."

"Anyway, I left a message with your secretary," Jack told Peggy.

"Which I appear to have missed. I just got back to the office from last night's stakeout an hour ago. Please don't ask." She leaned over to kiss Daniel, and then rested her cheek on top of his head. "I'm sorry you're not feeling well, love."

"Hey, I don't get a kiss?" Jack asked. "I'm heroically sacrificing my workday here."

"Such a sacrifice. I'm sure you're broken up about it." She kissed him too, and vanished off to her bedroom.

"She's going to need something to eat," Daniel said. He contemplated his crutch, and the unpleasant prospect of getting up. Between the bath and the rest -- relative to being on his feet or in a chair all day, anyway -- his muscles were finally unknotting.

"You move and I put you on the floor." Jack got to his feet, still graceful even in his fifties. "I'll pick up takeout. I could use the fresh air. Marley's? Or that new place down the street, whatever it's called, the one with the ribs."

"I don't care. You pick."

 

***

 

Peggy came out of the bathroom, drying her hair and wrapped in one of the silky-looking robes that Daniel loved to touch, while Jack was still gone. "Jack's picking up food," he said as Peggy lay down on the couch behind him. Daniel was sitting on the floor, legs stretched out and files in his lap.

"Oh, wonderful. I'm famished." She ran her fingers through his hair. Daniel tipped his head back to rest it against her. "How are you feeling?" she asked quietly.

"Better. Staying home helped. Remind me to thank Jack later." He opened his eyes. "How about you?"

"Oh, tired, I suppose, but still too wound up to sleep. It feels odd to try to fall asleep in the afternoon."

"You just worked all night," Daniel pointed out. "And most of the night before, if I remember right. Did you get your man?"

Peggy grimaced. "I'm not sure yet. It's one of _those_ sorts of cases. Jurisdictional disputes with the CIA, that sort of thing. Such a mess." She sat up. "But I'd rather not talk shop. May I rub your shoulders?"

"Oh God," Daniel groaned in bliss as her fingers dug into his spine. His head lolled against her leg. "Shouldn't I be doing this for you, after the day you've had?"

"I've all this spare energy. I may as well put it to good use."

There was a sudden rattle at the doorknob. Daniel felt Peggy jerk and tense, her hand flinching instinctively toward the shoulder holster she wasn't wearing -- even though they both knew it was almost certainly Jack. And it was, indeed, Jack coming through the door, laden with takeout bags. But. Habits.

"Well, that's a nice sight to greet a man," Jack remarked. "Do I get a backrub too?"

Peggy ran her hand across the back of Daniel's neck, raising the fine hairs in a pleasant shiver. "You brought food," she remarked playfully. "Of course you do. But first ... I suggest we eat."

 

***

 

It was some time later ... much later, perhaps, the afternoon shadows creeping across the floor, when Jack nudged Daniel's leg with his sock-clad foot and murmured, "Look."

Daniel looked up. Peggy (who, after having two sandwiches and giving Jack the promised neck-rub, had settled down on the couch with a case file in her lap) was fast asleep, sprawled with her hair in a half-unpinned mess over the arm of the couch.

Jack rose quietly and, with exquisite care, tucked a pillow under her head. Daniel turned to watch with quiet amusement, a little surprised when Jack managed to do it without waking her. She must really be out.

"Was waiting for you to get your ass kicked," he whispered. 

"I'm capable of being sneaky sometimes, Sousa."

"Plus she's dead tired."

"That too," Jack whispered. "I'm gonna get a drink. Want one?"

Daniel glanced up at the angle of the sun and then decided it didn't matter what time it was. "Sure. Though it'll probably put me out just like Peggy, as quiet as it is in here."

"It's a risk I'll take," Jack said dryly, and vanished into the kitchen. He was back shortly with two whiskey glasses and a half-full bottle. He set down one glass at Daniel's hand, and settled on the floor beside his box of files, close enough to rest his foot against Daniel's good leg.

"How much of that are you planning to drink?" Daniel inquired as Jack filled his glass to about twice the height of Daniel's.

"I'm doing the end-of-quarter financials. I need all the help I can get."

"Yeah, but you're gonna have to do 'em twice, and with a hangover, if you add up the numbers wrong."

"It's a risk I'll take," Jack remarked, leaning back against an armchair and flipping open a ledger book.

Daniel took a sip of whiskey and enjoyed the pleasant burn. He still ached, but not like this morning. Spending a day with the artificial leg off had done wonders for his stump -- he really ought to do that more often -- and so had giving his body a break from crutching around everywhere.

"Hey," he said, laying a hand on Jack's foot. Jack looked up, startled. "You do have good ideas sometimes."

Jack grinned, his hazel eyes sparkling. "Only sometimes?"

"Speaking as someone who's gone into more than a few crisis situations with you ... yeah, only sometimes."

Jack laughed softly and turned back to the ledger in his lap.

Daniel left his hand resting lightly on Jack's foot. On the couch, Peggy rolled over with a little snort and began to softly snore.

"She claims she doesn't do that," Jack murmured.

"I know. You want to be the one to tell her?"

"We could bring in some surveillance equipment from work and record her."

This time it was Daniel's turn to laugh. "I'd like to see you fill out the requisition form on that one."

"Forms? There have to be some perks to being upper management in this outfit."

Like being able to take a spontaneous day off. Well ... "off." But, as he settled back to checking agents' expenses with his fingers curled loosely over Jack's instep, Daniel thought that -- for all the twists and turns on the road that had led him here -- there was nowhere else he'd rather be, and no one else he'd rather be doing it with.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a request on Tumblr for [a cuddling coda](https://sholiofic.tumblr.com/post/171478203993/thank-you-again-for-feeding-our-hungry-fandom) to this story, now belatedly posted along with the story it goes to!

"Hi, beautiful."

"Hi," Peggy murmured sleepily. She had eventually been coaxed and prodded off the couch, into the bedroom, after Daniel and Jack had gotten some food into her. And there she'd slept the afternoon away.

Now Daniel, stripped to his undershirt and boxers, was sitting on the edge of the bed, petting her hair. She smiled sleepily and slid over on the bed, noticing as she did so that she had, at some point, changed into her pajamas. She had a vague but pleasant recollection of having been helped with that.

Daniel settled into her arms. Peggy raised her head long enough to notice that the light through the blinds was the warm orange glow of the street lights rather than afternoon sunshine. She'd slept the day away. And she didn't feel like she was done sleeping yet. Maybe she needed to stop staying up for 48 hours straight ...

"Where's Jack?" she asked, resting her cheek against the top of Daniel's head.

"He's doing the dishes."

She couldn't help laughing quietly into his hair. "How much bribery did that take?"

"Pointing out that the dishes were still going to be there in the morning if someone didn't."

This made her laugh again. This was, in the end, the problem with growing up -- you started to realize that someone had to do the chores, and if you didn't, they'd just sit there, forever.

The thought occurred to her, as she lay with Daniel's face turned into her neck, his breath ghosting across her collarbone, that it would have been all too easy for the men in her life to expect her to do it herself, because of her sex. Fred would have, once upon a time, a lifetime ago.

"What's so funny?" Daniel asked quietly against her neck.

"Oh, nothing," she murmured. "Just thinking about roads not taken."

"Regrets?"

"No," she said, wrapping her arms more tightly around him. From outside the bedroom came the cheerful clinking of glasses in the sink, and the sound of Jack humming quietly to himself; he had a good singing voice, not that he seemed to believe it when anyone told him. And she couldn't imagine a life that was better than this, not in a thousand alternate lifetimes.


End file.
